Posted by Jason on: 08.04.2008 /
Two weeks ago I wrote about false assumptions and how Christians suffered in the past because of them just as atheists suffer today. Atheism doesn’t have a philosophy or principles to counter these false assumptions any more than it has a philosophy or principles to deserve them. Secular humanism does put forward a set of positive traits and promotes a world view. These are:
This week I wish to discuss why reason, evidence and the scientific method are important to our world view.
Reason, evidence, scientific method – A commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
I won’t repeat the benefits of the scientific method again as I have done so before. If anyone does want to read about it please go waay back to March and have a look here.
This follows on from the need to test beliefs. We need to ensure that the methods of testing our beliefs are appropriate. As my old Math teacher, Mr Wells, used to say “show your working” or we ensure that we don’t simply arrive at a conclusion without knowing the steps that we made to arrive at it. When we are wrong it makes it much easier to go back and see where the error was. We reduce the number of assumptions that we make.
In the 14th century William of Ockham, an English monk in the Franciscan order described a principle that basically states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible. Ockham’s razor is well known today in religious debates on the subject of creationism as well as many other areas.
Of the seven tenets I would assume that this one is the one that most Christians take the greatest issue with. I don’t mean this because Christians or other theistic groups do not use reason, evidence or the scientific method to make sense of the world. That wouldn’t be true. I say it because it seems to deny the spiritual and refute faith as a way of living. As Christians you place a certain amount of value on faith and denying this value will naturally put you on the defensive.
Yet we are talking about human problems and answers to human questions. While I doubt that there is a god of any kind I do know that gods aren’t human. If gods do choose to interact with humanity there is nothing that we can do about it. That leaves us only with human problems and questions that we can influence. Last week Mike posted something that was ultimately about the question of evil. How does such a question register on a secular humanist’s opinion?
My answer is that the question of evil is not a human question. Why does God allow evil? How can such a question ever be answered by a human? How can the idea be tested? Isn’t the assumption of the question worth examining before seeking an answer? Namely that God allows evil? Does God allow evil? The question assumes that evil exists and that God allows it. Further, that God exists to allow evil. The questions then are what is evil and what is God?
There is no way to test to investigate the question as to what is God. There is no way to determine why Gods allow evil? These are not questions that can be answered. As for evil, I believe that this is purely a human concept. Events are neither good nor evil except in the way we view them. Our actions are either good or evil depending on how they are viewed by others. There are certainly actions that I would view as evil. Many would agree with me but some actions that I would view as evil would be considered merely unpleasant by some others and others that I do not consider to be evil would be viewed with horror and revulsion by some.
The question of why God allows evil is simply not an important human question. Not without proof of God anyway. Our reason can better be focused on something that we can solve. There really is enough to occupy our minds.
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Comment by: Mike O
1 08/5/08 5:41 AM | Comment Link |I can agree with parts of what you’re saying, but others - not so much.
I agree, to the extent that we’re talking about human questions, like “how does this work.”
But you follow that statement with this more general one -
You lose me a bit on this one, because the scientific method and beliefs don’t deal with the same universe of questions. “I believe she loves me” isn’t something the scientific method can be applied to. There are things outside the realm of science, and the only question the scientific method can answer about them is, “Is it provable.” The scientific method cannot answer questions of “Is it true?” or “Does it matter?”
But to the extent that we’re only talking about scientific questions, then yes, the scientific method should be used. Christians may not want to use the scientific method here, either, but I think that’s foolishness.
Not scientifically, no. But if there’s a whole other realm of spiritual law (as opposed to scientific law), as religious people believe, then the fact that it can’t be “proven” scientifically really doesn’t deal with it - it just ignores it. “It’s outside of science, therefore it doesn’t matter.”
That’s where I depart from the value of this tenet. If there is a spiritual level to things that operates in addition to science, then it is possible to answer these questions. It is possible to explore the questions of God and evil and all that. But science can’t help you - it’s a spiritual thing.
I read a verse the other day during my morning devotions. I’ve read it a hundred times before, but never thought about it in this context. it’s from the story of Nicodemus. This is the whole “born again” passage where Nicodemus comes to Jesus and asks how a man can be born again - can he enter a 2nd time into his mother’s womb and be born?
One phrase in Jesus’ answer caught my attention, because I’ve been thinking about these last couple of posts -
One of the difficulties I face as a Christian poster here on this blog is that it’s a “flesh” environment talking about “spiritual” topics. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, I just think it’s true, and it makes the task of explaining spiritual things difficult. Not that it matters here, but that’s why I have to rely on God (assuming he even exists) to take care of the spiritual communication. I believe that people have a spiritual component whether you’re a believer or not. Atheists wouldn’t agree, but if I’m right, that doesn’t matter. So when I write, I’m limited to communicating with the physical mind and I have to leave the communication with your spirit (assuming you have one) to God.
It’s kind of like trying to explain television when all you know is radio - there’s a whole other level to television that just can’t be explained using the language of radio. And there’s a whole other level to spirituality that can’t be expalined using the language of science. That doesn’t make it untrue or irrelevant or anything - it just means radio can’t explain television.
Sorry for the deviation - I said all of that to say this - I do agree with your 2nd tenet as it relates to scientific material. But outside of that, I disagree that it’s impossible to discover anything spiritual, simply because it’s not scientifically provable.
Comment by: Jason
2 08/5/08 1:53 PM | Comment Link |Thanks for the response Mike.
The scientific method may not be able to answer questions like “Does she love me” without some pretty extensive testing that might be harmful to the relationship but reason and evidence should give you some idea. The scientific method is a way of testing theories and reducing bias. Obviously it does a great job at this but you are quite correct in that it cannot be used exclusively to solve every problem or answer every question.
On the problem of evil you said:
As an esoteric idea of “evil” I’d agree. I don’t believe that evil like that exists. Rather I believe that certain human actions can be viewed as good or evil depending on the observer’s bias.
We could explore the questions of God or gods and morality through a number of techniques. The scientific method isn’t one of them but we could use the scientific disciplines of anthropology, psychology, sociology, evolutionary biology and a whole host of other sciences as well as plain of philosophy and logic. In short we can use our reason. We shouldn’t abandon that reason in favour of spirituality. Not unless reason fails us. I can’t see that it has or does.
In discussing the difficulties of communicating religious ideas you said:
I must say that I have a hard time with the theistic idea of spirituality. I naturalistic idea of spirituality as a connectedness and wonder at the world and it’s many complexities makes sense to me. As social animals it makes sense that we’d want to explore our place in the extended society of life and our environment. I can see how we’d want to look beyond that but to me the direction of that exploration should be both ourselves and the far reaches of space rather than a mythical realm.
Some questions are not scientific in nature, these belong in the realms of philosophy. Some questions are simply on the subject of knowledge itself, what we can know and what is unavailable to us. If a question is unanswerable, such as “how can we know that anything we know is real?” then we must explore it in a logical and philosophical manner and reduce the amount of assumptions being made. A spiritual experience may have, indeed I would say always has, a naturalistic explanation even if we cannot readily identify what it is.
I understand that you don’t agree with that idea but I don’t think that it is incompatible with your theology. You could, for instance, assume God as a prime motivator who steps back from creation to observe the natural consequences of his plan. Everything remains naturalistic but you retain your spiritual element and mysticism. I would say that this makes the wonder of it all the more poignant that the plan is so perfect that it requires no adjustment and correction. I would say that if I were theistically inclined but I’m not, so I won’t. :)
Comment by: Mike O
3 08/7/08 10:57 AM | Comment Link |On this point, I think we’re in agreement. Although I would contend that reason does fail us. The most obvious examples would be miracles, but there is the problem of verifiability. Here is a video of Criss Angel walking on water.
I *know* this is an illusion, and I *know* there are people who claim miracles that are lying, but I *believe* there are also real miracles. I guess what I’m trying to say is that IF a miracle could be proven, it would defy reason. Yet atheists would concoct a “rational” explanation. In fact, you kind of said that when you said this:
That’s kind of my point - it’s very difficult for people who don’t believe in a spiritual realm to grasp, let alone consider valid, the dynamics of a spiritual world.
Interestingly, I think you do reduce the number of assumptions sometimes by considering spiritual drivers to things. in fact, the lack of consideration of spiritual things is a huge assumption in itself.
I feel like I should add here that I am NOT NOT NOT advocating spirituality over reason. I’m advocating spirituality in addition to reason.
Comment by: Jason
4 08/10/08 6:46 AM | Comment Link |Exactly. How do we know that they are miracles until we verify some event has actually occurred? How then do we verify that the event is beyond the realms of a naturalistic explanation? Even if we do that how can we determine that some hitherto unknown natural phenomena isn’t responsible?
If you gain some comfort from believing that miracles do occur then that’s fine but you cannot rely on them. Given the fact that they are apart from naturalistic phenomena they cannot be predicted or assumed in any way if you believe in them. Miracles require far more faith than belief in a creator. I’d say that you could believe in Gods without believing in miracles. I believe that Thomas Jefferson had this approach.
I completely disagree. We must first use what we can prove before making guesses and assumptions based on what is reasonable. If I lift a stone up I know that it will always drop to the ground when I release it. This follows scientifically determined laws of motion and energy. I should never assume that it will one day float into the sky under the power of a miracle or the influence of a poltergeist. More complex ideas must have the same assumptions. Perhaps you have an example where a spiritual driver should take precedence?
Aren’t they mutually exclusive? Surely you have “nature” and “supernature”? If something has a natural explanation it cannot be supernatural as well. Perhaps my understanding of spirituality isn’t sufficient to understand your point.
Comment by: Mike O
5 08/10/08 12:38 PM | Comment Link |I wonder if it comes down to the basic assumption of the existance of God. To me, it’s not even logical to think that life - phisical life - could sustain itself without God.
At a high level, if everything is purely natural, you should be able to kill a perfectly healthy person, wait an hour, and then apply some preocedure to re-infuse the body with life.
But you can’t.
So to me, “life” is a spiritual thing. Because “life” can’t be caused by any natural event. “Life” can only be sustained or propogated.
I know that’s kind of vague, but whether you agree with my logic or not, that’s one example where I take reason and add spirituality - to me, “life” is not reasonable without a spiritual element. That’s just me, but at least there’s reason/logic involved in the spiritual position.
And if there *is* nothing you can prove??
You’re still tying it to science. God can’t be proven or deduced.
Comment by: Jason
6 08/10/08 3:05 PM | Comment Link |Yet. Who knows what the future may bring.
Then we use reason to extrapolate from existing “knowns”. I’m not discounting that some things we know are also extrapolated from other extrapolated knowns. we largely build upon what works to find what else works.
True, nor disproved. God can only be assumed. Not that it really matters. If your belief doesn’t limit you and enables you to live a more fulfilling existence then my opinion is irrelevant. I know that my own non-religious beliefs do not limit me, or at least I feel that they don’t. There is no other “me” to test the assumption against.
Comment by: Mike O
7 08/10/08 8:10 PM | Comment Link |Right. SO you’ll assume that there’s a scientific explanation and I’ll assume it’s spiritual. And in the meantime, we’re both left with our own belief systems standing. My point wasn’t to convince you that there is anything spiritual, merely that it’s reasonable for people who think it’s spiritual to think that. It was an example of spirituality in addition to reason.
And round and round we go. THis brings me back to something I said in my first comment
It just seems like the secular humanist approach is to ignore anything that doesn’t fit within your paradigm. Or at least assume it does fit your paradigm, but you you just don’t understand how … yet. These are the areas where there is room for spirituality to be true.
Comment by: Jason
8 08/10/08 10:47 PM | Comment Link |Of course. I’m sure you have your reasons for believing in the spiritual aspects of existence. I am not satisfied with it so I prefer to reserve judgment until some proof is demonstrated.
Fair enough. I suppose all I can do is wait and see if spirituality presents itself. I know of no method to test for it so must reserve judgment.